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Jail for man who threw rice cooker, suitcase out of HDB flat window after arguing with wife

SINGAPORE — A 46-year-old man was sentenced to four weeks’ jail on Thursday (Oct 20) for throwing an assortment of items, including a rice cooker and suitcase, out of his second-floor flat windows.

SINGAPORE — A 46-year-old man was sentenced to four weeks’ jail on Thursday (Oct 20) for throwing an assortment of items, including a rice cooker and suitcase, out of his second-floor flat windows.

Qian Xuefeng suspected that his wife was having an affair. They got into a verbal argument before threatening to divorce each other.

The suitcase, weighing 5kg, fell on two cars and left scratches and dents. No one was injured from Qian’s "killer litter" act.

The Chinese national pleaded guilty in a district court to committing a rash act endangering the personal safety of others.

Another unrelated charge of voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous means was taken into consideration for sentencing. He had struck a man with a chopper at an Admiralty coffee shop in December 2020.

He was given a conditional warning over this offence, but breached it by reoffending earlier this year.

The court heard that on the afternoon of May 7, Qian thought his spouse was exchanging text messages with other men and confronted her about this.

He then drank a can of beer in their Housing and Development Board (HDB) flat at Jurong West.

When she returned from work around 10pm, he accused her of having an affair. They quarrelled over the messages she had allegedly sent, before  threatening to divorce each other.

She began packing her belongings while he drank two more cans of beer.

At about 2am, she was about to leave the house with her belongings in two suitcases when he asked her to stay.

She refused and went to the void deck with her suitcases.

Enraged, Qian began throwing items like plastic containers, a pillow and clothes hangers out of their bedroom window before going to the kitchen and throwing things like a rice cooker and ladle out of the window.

His wife saw things landing on the ground floor and suspected he was behind it. When she returned to their unit to stop him, he told her not to bother him since she already intended to leave.

She went down to retrieve the items but he continued to toss them out of the window. A suitcase hit two vehicles, while some clothes landed on the top of a sheltered walkway.

Some other items that Qian threw included a sling bag, extension plug, a bag of fruits, bedsheets, an electric kettle and a ladle.

A resident who was walking home called the police upon witnessing this.

On Thursday, Qian told the court through a Mandarin interpreter that he was willing to accept punishment.

He began crying over a video-link, saying he was “anxious and scared” and that he hoped for a lenient sentence. “I feel bad about high-rise littering. I will not do this again in the future.”

For endangering the personal safety of others by a rash act, he could have been jailed for up to six months or fined up to S$2,500, or punished with both.

Qian's sentence was backdated to Sept 28, as he was in remand.

Related topics

court crime high-rise littering killer litter wife

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